Blackpool boss Simon Grayson admitted his side were indebted to Paul Rachubka for denying Nottingham Forest a deserved win at The City Ground.The American stopper was in inspired form throughout the game, making a string of saves to prevent Forest turning their supremacy into three points.

Grayson said: "He's been busier today than he has been on a lot of occasions away from home this season and at the end of it we were thankful to him for making some fantastic saves.

"But I thought we defended well as a team. Forest gave us a really stern test and Colin Calderwood can feel really proud of his players after a performance like that.

"From our point of view sometimes you have to grind out a result and I was really pleased that we did that to get a clean sheet and be able to go home with a point.

"I was disappointed with our attacking play at times but you have to give Forest a lot of credit for the way they put pressure on us.

"We've now got 28 points at the halfway point in the season and if we repeat that in the second half we will be safe in this division."

Forest's hopes of survival are more complicated as they find themselves in the bottom three still four points adrift of safety.

Saturday's point at least moved them up a place to 22nd in the table, and their boss Calderwood is adamant that they have the quality to move themselves away from their lowly position.

"The belief in the dressing room is very strong that we will get out of the bottom three and after performances like that I don't think anyone can disagree," he said.

"We did everything but score and I think you can see that there is a great spirit among the players. They are just a little bit frustrated that they haven't got the rewards they have deserved at times.

"We had an impetus and attitude about us to win the game but because of some fine goalkeeping and missed chances on our part we had to settle for a point.

"We were on the front foot, no one hid as one or two did when we lost to Sheffield United in midweek.

"Blackpool's keeper has to take a huge amount of plaudits for his performance but the good thing from our point of view was that we worked him throughout the 90 minutes."

Rachubka's best save of the afternoon was to deny a Chris Cohen shot with a full-length dive to his right, while he also kept out Joe Garner on two occasions and Nathan Tyson once.

Tyson also prodded an early chance wide, Wes Morgan clipped the crossbar with a header and James Perch headed wide when he should have hit the target.

Blackpool were bereft of chances for the most part but Liam Dickinson, who has been a goalscoring revelation since joining them on loan, almost grabbed a winner when his 30-yard free-kick flew just wide.

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